His Pregnancy Bargain (13 page)

‘That you did.' Luc flicked the switch of a table lamp and a gentle glow illuminated the big room.

‘Why didn't you wake me up?'

She ran a hand over her hair and found one side was sticking up. She tried to pat it down. Luc was the sort of person who didn't get sticky-up hair; he was the sort of person who managed to look perfect no matter the situation.

Now was no exception to this rule. Looking at him, she was engulfed by a wave of longing so intense it hurt.

He looked amused by the question. ‘For what reason?'

‘Well, I can't drive back home tonight…' Her glance drifted towards a darkened window. ‘What time is it anyway?' she wanted to know.

‘Ten.'

‘What?' she groaned, pushing aside the throw. ‘I'll never find a hotel room now.'

‘There's a perfectly good bed upstairs.' He saw her expression and he gave a cynical smile. ‘And a perfectly good sofa here, which I will take, and,' he added, ‘there are clean sheets on the bed.'

Megan was not happy with the arrangement but she accepted the inevitable with as much good grace as possible under the circumstances.

There were no blinds on the roof windows in Luc's big bedroom so she could lie in bed and see the stars above. She could also see the time on the dial of her watch.

She consulted it now and found that it was three-thirty, five minutes later than the last time she had looked! Perhaps a drink of milk might help…?

The getting of the milk involved going downstairs where Luc was sleeping. But, she reminded herself, Luc sleeping wasn't a problem—it was Luc awake that she had to worry about.

Without switching on the lights she slipped quietly downstairs. She winced and froze warily when the electric light from the fridge spilled out into the dark room. Tensely she waited…but no voice in the dark demanded to know who was there…

Clearly Luc was a deep sleeper.

Obviously she was relieved. She didn't
want
him to wake up and find her there; that would be
really
stupid.

Her foot on the bottom step, she stopped and turned back…
Impulse…?
Isn't this what you planned to do all
along? Her heart was beating so fast she was sure it would wake the sleeping man. Isn't that what you want…?

With a frown she dismissed the intrusive voice in her head and stood looking down at the shadowy sleeping figure. She couldn't see his face, but the blanket spread over him had fallen down to waist level as he slept, revealing that he was naked at least from the waist up. Below…? Do not go there, Megan!

She looked with longing that made her throat ache at the smooth, supple line of his strong back and the deliciously defined musculature of his broad shoulders. The muscles low in her belly cramped.

What am I doing? She pressed a hand across her tight, aching breasts. If he woke up now what would she say? I couldn't resist a quick peek…? In the darkness a flush of mortification spread over her skin.

She was literally about to turn away when a deep voice enquired, ‘Well, are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to get in?'

Megan froze like a startled animal caught in the beam of a strong headlight as Luc flipped over onto his back.

‘You're awake,' she gasped stupidly.

‘Of course I'm awake.' The scathing derision in his voice was mingling with a distinguishable note of strain.

In the semi-darkness their eyes locked.

Still holding her gaze, he flung back the thin blanket and Megan saw that his naked state extended below the waist. Her entire body started to shake; even in this light there was no mistaking his state of arousal.

‘There's no room,' she protested weakly.

‘Underneath me…on top of me…'

Megan gave a low moan of sheer lustful longing. She pulled the tee shirt he had given her over her head in one smooth motion. She stood poised, her pale body gleaming translucently and heard his sharp intake of breath.

‘Your feet are cold and you're shaking!' he said as she slid in beside him.

‘So are you,' she discovered. ‘You have no idea how much I have wanted to touch you,' she admitted, running her hands over the lean, smooth contours of his body and making him shake a lot more.

‘Tell me about it,' he invited.

Megan did.

At some point in the night he carried her upstairs to the big bed.

When she complained that the bed had gone cold Luc laughed throatily and said that there was a tried and tested method of warming up a bed.

As he pulled her beneath him and touched her in her most secret places with a skill that was simply devastating she wondered if he had utilised his bed-warming skills with anyone else in this particular bed.

She pushed aside the intrusive question and let the tension flow from her body. Why spoil what was perfect by wanting more? What Luc was giving her was more than she had ever imagined experiencing.

L
UC
,
behind the wheel of Megan's car, stopped in the village to fill the car with petrol. Megan took the opportunity to nip to the village shop, which was next door. The place, which smelt of newly baked bread, was amazingly well stocked. Megan peered at the amazing selection of cheese and cooked meats in the cold cabinet and the attractively displayed local organic vegetables, commenting on the fact to the woman behind the counter.

‘If we want to encourage people to shop locally and not go to the big supermarkets in town we have to give them what they want.'

This sounded like good business sense to Megan, who left with some locally produced cheese, which the woman had personally recommended, as well as the two fat Sunday newspapers she had come in for.

Luc was sitting in the car waiting for her when she got back, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. She slid in beside him. They had agreed to drive in shifts—at least, she had agreed and he had said nothing at all, which to save argument she had decided to believe equalled assent.

‘Where have you been?'

‘Like there's so much choice? Though you can get pretty much what you want in the shop. I bought some blue smelly cheese.' Luc laughed when she attempted to read the Welsh label on it.

‘I know the one and it is delicious, but you can't have any.'

Megan's chin went up. ‘Because you say so.' If he thought he could go around issuing autocratic decrees left
and right and she would meekly sit there and take it, he was in for a disappointment.

‘Because you're pregnant and pregnant women should not eat, amongst other things, soft cheeses.'

‘Really…?'

His sensual lips curved upwards.

‘Really.'

Megan shook her head; this being pregnant was a mine-field. ‘How on earth did you know?'

He inserted the ignition key. ‘I'm well read, talking of which…' His pained glance touched the pile of newspapers on her knee. ‘What do you intend to do with those?'

‘Don't worry, I'm not going to eat them. What do you think I'm going to do with them? I'm going to read them.'

‘While I'm driving?'

‘Well, not while I'm driving.' What was his problem?

‘Broadsheet newspapers?'

‘You prefer tabloids?'

His lips moved in a spasm of fastidious distaste as she selected a paper and cheerfully tossed the other one over her shoulder. The pages scattered over the back seat. His thoughts were diverted from the unreadable quality of crumpled papers when Megan then crossed her legs, long, sexy, go-on-for-ever legs. She proceeded to balance one edge of the paper precariously on one knee, leaving the other to flap against the driving mirror.

‘I'd
prefer
you didn't distract me while I'm driving.' Luc, whose eyes were riveted to the expanse of smooth, rounded thigh her knee-crossing action had exposed, fully appreciated the irony of his comment.

Tight-lipped, she folded the paper with a lot of loud sighs. ‘Am I allowed to
talk
?' she enquired spikily when she had disposed of the newspaper in the back seat. She had seen him look at her legs and was excited and trying desperately not to show it.

‘I'm a captive audience.'

Megan looked at his hands on the wheel, and a freeze-
frame image flashed across her retina—an image straight from a fantasy, only it hadn't been, had it…? She really had sat astride him and pinioned his hands above his head? Not that he had seemed to mind very much.

The memory of her depravity and how much she had enjoyed it sent her body temperature soaring by what felt like several hundred degrees in the space of a single heartbeat.

‘I don't feel like talking,' Megan grunted, turning her face away from him. She looked out the window and tried really hard to concentrate on the scenery. In direct contradiction of her earlier comment she almost immediately added, ‘About last night…' Did she imagine that his hands tightened on the wheel?

Up to that point neither of them had commented on the sleepless night they had shared. Megan, exhausted, had drifted off to sleep near dawn. When she had woken up she had been alone, a holdall sitting in the middle of the bedroom. Then Luc had walked into the room minus clothes and modesty!

Megan, who had been taking a sly peek into the bag, almost fell over. Her eyes had moved in helpless approval of the sleek, muscular lines of his incredible body. His skin, still dusted with water droplets had gleamed the colour of old gold.

A disturbing half-smile had played about his fascinating lips as he'd continued to towel his dark hair dry.

‘I can think of better uses for that towel,' she croaked, tearing her hungry eyes from his body.

‘It's not like you've not seen it all before, and I think you're wearing enough for both of us,' he commented, turning his amused attention to the blanket she had arranged sarong-wise to cover herself. ‘Nice outfit, but not really suitable for the journey. You'd better get a move on,' he added casually, flicking the towel in her direction. ‘There's a severe gale warning out for later. I don't fancy getting caught
in the middle of a storm. You do remember agreeing to me moving in on a trial basis?'

Last night, she would have agreed to anything he'd suggested. The way she remembered it she pretty much had. Once Luc had got over his concern about sex not harming the baby, he had been pretty inventive.

‘I remember everything.'

She still did, which made bringing up the subject now hard, but she had to know.

Luc slowed at a crossroads and squinted up at the sign-post partially hidden by a hedge. ‘What part of last night specifically did you have in mind?'

‘It was all pretty incredible,' she responded with a husky catch in her voice. Beside her she was aware of Luc inhaling sharply. ‘At least I thought so…' She took a deep breath. ‘I have to know…'

He slid a teasing look at her flushed face and turned left onto a quiet country road. ‘If it was good for me?'

She shook her head, then, aware that his attention was on the winding road, explained. ‘I have to know if you slept with me because you wanted to get me to agree to you moving in.'

There was a long silence. Megan risked a peek at his profile, it was totally unreadable as he concentrated on the road ahead.

‘In a kind of look-what-you'd-be-missing sort of way?'

Megan's heart sank. There was no anger in his voice, his manner was almost indolent, but the deliberate pauses in between his words just screamed with it.

‘If that had been my motivation, would it have worked?'

Megan heaved a massive sigh. ‘Oh, God, yes…
totally
,' she admitted. ‘I have absolutely no will power where you're concerned,' she revealed rashly.

A long sibilant hiss escaped through his clenched teeth, as if this piece of devastating honesty was the last thing Luc had been expecting to hear.

‘I had no ulterior motive last night beyond the fact I haven't thought of anything else but having you in my bed since that first time. Does that make you feel better?'

Megan didn't reply, she couldn't, her vocal cords simply didn't function—for that matter nothing else did either.
Better
, he had said! Catatonic might be more apt.

‘You've gone awfully quiet.'

‘I'm thinking,' she croaked.

‘Thinking what?'

‘Thinking great sex isn't a sound basis for a long-lasting relationship, but we might as well enjoy it while it lasts.' Megan was pleased that she'd managed to inject the right light-hearted note into her response.

Luc's jaw tightened as he gazed grimly ahead. ‘It's going to last a hell of a long time.'

 

He was wrong, of course; it didn't. Though for a while there she had started believing him, they were the best three months of her life. They were also some of the busiest.

The first month she was still commuting up to London and then the next two months there were the inevitable teething problems that came about from the upheaval of the transfer. She had to work late frequently and arrived home depressed and tired.

Luc didn't complain about the hour or demand to know where she had been. He would take one look at her pale, exhausted face and tell her she looked like hell, then he'd kiss her until the colour returned to her cheeks.

Luc knew a lot about kissing; even thinking about his mouth made her insides melt.

On a typical evening, while she soaked in a scented bath with her non-alcoholic drink he would sit on the edge and sip his wine while he coaxed the details of her days from her. He had a unique ability to make her see the funny side of things that had seemed like major disasters. Then he would tell her about his day, things that had happened in
the estate or the entire chapter that had been consigned to the bin.

Like their love making, no two evenings together were the same, but they were all magical to Megan who had never experienced this sort of sharing with anyone before.

The magic was short-lived. At the beginning of November she was searching for a piece of paper that she had scribbled down a friend's change of address on when she saw THE LETTER. She always thought of THE LETTER in capital letters. She had only needed to read one line and the signature: ‘I will always love you. Grace.' This had been enough to send her little world crashing around her ears.

Had she imagined that Luc was happy because she was? The irony was she had begun to think lately that he really might actually share her feelings…that he really might be in love with her. On one or two occasions she had even imagined that he had been on the brink of saying something; now she knew for sure that this had been wishful thinking.

Humiliated and hurting, she had taken immediate and drastic action. The result was that she now slept alone in the big bed that they had once shared.